This Feb. 10th marks the fourth anniversary of this blog, and I'm almost not sure I'm going to do another one of these blog posts. I mean, I'm typing this one up, and putting it up for all the world to see, to celebrate the day I founded Reader, Writer, Fanboy. Aka the day when Sony booted Andrew Garfield's prettyboy ass to the curb, a day I only look back on because it inspired me to rant at length about why that was a terrible idea. Naturally, Tom Holland's taken the mantle and run with it like it's a pair of scissors, but I'm still forever salty that Garfield didn't - and still doesn't - get the respect he deserves.
Showing posts with label MyThoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MyThoughts. Show all posts
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Monday, September 4, 2017
Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man, The Bicon We Deserved
So tonight, this two-year-old article dredging up more sordid details about the Sony Pictures email hack resurfaced and made the rounds on YA Twitter, and you know what? Even though I gotta get up early in the morning to go to work, I have to speak up on this, because it's really too near and dear to my heart, the subject matter at hand. Not to worry, I shouldn't take up too much of your time.
As a Spidey-fan, it's easy for me to blame Sony for everything that goes wrong with that franchise. Maguire!Spidey goes weird with Venom? Blame Sony. Andrew Garfield gets fired? Blame Sony. Marvel gets to put Holland!Spidey in the MCU but has to share the film rights and still struggles to even keep their foot in the door for 'em? Blame Sony.
Back to the second point, with some reading-between-the-lines expansion - Andrew Garfield gets fired for wanting to play Spidey as bisexual? Some people seem to wanna blame Stan Lee, but I'm not so inclined to do so. Well, sure, Lee's old and probably pretty set in his ways, but at least he ain't Ike Perlmutter, right?
No. As usual, I'm gonna blame Sony.
I won't even get into the whole nastiness of Sony stipulating Peter has to be white, 'cause that's not my lane - other than to hope that this particular detail doesn't preclude us from getting the on-screen live-action Miles Morales we need (and let Jason Reynolds write his parts in the screenplay too, while we're at it.)
I'm just gonna focus here on the fact that we could've had Peter exploring his sexuality in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and/or 4, and figuring out that hey, bi ain't bad. Bi is beautiful. From the sound of it, Garfield would've sure as shit been game - hell, as I remember, he even suggested casting Michael B. Jordan as Peter's potential boyfriend.
For all the LGBTQ+ oriented media I've consumed in the last few years as I've struggled to figure out my own sexuality - Simon Vs., Adam Silvera's books, Laura Lam's books, Elliot Wake's books, Jerkbait, Eyewitness, More Than This, Last Seen Leaving, a Wattpad version of Bone Diggers, and so much more...really, they've all helped me cement my self-perception a bit better, but none have given me the courage to come out beyond the scope of my pseudonymous internet profiles. None have given me the courage to come out as a beautiful bi boy in real life.
Garfield's Spider-Man would've done that, of that I'm sure.
So, as much as I still love what we got with his version of the character, knowing this now just makes me detest Sony that much more, and hope against hope that they never, ever, EVER get their hands on the film rights to any of my books.
(That, plus the fact that Sony's got such a reputation for spoilery movie trailers.)
When I read and reviewed Silvera's History Is All You Left Me, I proposed finding alternate universes where I was out IRL, and where Garfield and Emma Stone got to play Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy in the MCU like nature intended. Perhaps those two universes might in fact be one - and they'll also get to meet Daisy Johnson in that 'verse just 'cause it'd be absolute MCU perfection for me that way.
In the absence of this alternate universe in my life, though...for now, I'm just a bi boy waiting for my even more perfect on-screen mirror, The Amazing Bi-der-Man. And yes, more than ever, I totally headcanon Garfield!Spidey as bi now. (To be fair, I low-key do for Holland!Spidey as well, but who knows where that'll go?)
To all my LGBTQ+ friends, and especially my bi comrades in arms, here's one last GIF of the man who would've been the bicon we deserved.
Good night, my sweet, sweet Pinecones. Till next time...
As a Spidey-fan, it's easy for me to blame Sony for everything that goes wrong with that franchise. Maguire!Spidey goes weird with Venom? Blame Sony. Andrew Garfield gets fired? Blame Sony. Marvel gets to put Holland!Spidey in the MCU but has to share the film rights and still struggles to even keep their foot in the door for 'em? Blame Sony.
Back to the second point, with some reading-between-the-lines expansion - Andrew Garfield gets fired for wanting to play Spidey as bisexual? Some people seem to wanna blame Stan Lee, but I'm not so inclined to do so. Well, sure, Lee's old and probably pretty set in his ways, but at least he ain't Ike Perlmutter, right?
No. As usual, I'm gonna blame Sony.
I won't even get into the whole nastiness of Sony stipulating Peter has to be white, 'cause that's not my lane - other than to hope that this particular detail doesn't preclude us from getting the on-screen live-action Miles Morales we need (and let Jason Reynolds write his parts in the screenplay too, while we're at it.)
I'm just gonna focus here on the fact that we could've had Peter exploring his sexuality in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and/or 4, and figuring out that hey, bi ain't bad. Bi is beautiful. From the sound of it, Garfield would've sure as shit been game - hell, as I remember, he even suggested casting Michael B. Jordan as Peter's potential boyfriend.
For all the LGBTQ+ oriented media I've consumed in the last few years as I've struggled to figure out my own sexuality - Simon Vs., Adam Silvera's books, Laura Lam's books, Elliot Wake's books, Jerkbait, Eyewitness, More Than This, Last Seen Leaving, a Wattpad version of Bone Diggers, and so much more...really, they've all helped me cement my self-perception a bit better, but none have given me the courage to come out beyond the scope of my pseudonymous internet profiles. None have given me the courage to come out as a beautiful bi boy in real life.
Garfield's Spider-Man would've done that, of that I'm sure.
So, as much as I still love what we got with his version of the character, knowing this now just makes me detest Sony that much more, and hope against hope that they never, ever, EVER get their hands on the film rights to any of my books.
(That, plus the fact that Sony's got such a reputation for spoilery movie trailers.)
When I read and reviewed Silvera's History Is All You Left Me, I proposed finding alternate universes where I was out IRL, and where Garfield and Emma Stone got to play Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy in the MCU like nature intended. Perhaps those two universes might in fact be one - and they'll also get to meet Daisy Johnson in that 'verse just 'cause it'd be absolute MCU perfection for me that way.
 |
| Be still my Quaking heart... |
In the absence of this alternate universe in my life, though...for now, I'm just a bi boy waiting for my even more perfect on-screen mirror, The Amazing Bi-der-Man. And yes, more than ever, I totally headcanon Garfield!Spidey as bi now. (To be fair, I low-key do for Holland!Spidey as well, but who knows where that'll go?)
To all my LGBTQ+ friends, and especially my bi comrades in arms, here's one last GIF of the man who would've been the bicon we deserved.
 |
| 💗💜💙 |
Good night, my sweet, sweet Pinecones. Till next time...
 |
| #FeedTheRightWolf |
 |
| Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
Monday, November 28, 2016
One, The Loneliest Number
Last week, I made the huge, huge mistake of telling a girl I liked her, and she said she was seeing someone else. Embarrassing as hell for both of us. It'll have been a week since that embarrassment tomorrow, Tuesday, and the more I think about it, the more I realize it's just part of an ongoing, increasingly unhappy pattern.
Unfortunately, largely thanks to my parents keeping me back and discouraging me from socializing and/or dating from my teenage years onward (not to mention me being stupid enough to parrot their values, which made me further ostracized because their largely religion-based conservatism is incompatible with Bay Area society in general), I've literally been single all my life. I've never had a girlfriend. I've never even kissed a girl.
So what the hell am I doing writing what that little boy from The Princess Bride would call "kissing books?" Wish fulfillment, partly, along with my heavy use of flight and super speed motifs to represent the freedom I crave. (I promise, though, some of the deadlier stuff that happens in Red Rain, etc. is NOT wish fulfillment. More like a reflection of how I think my parents would treat me getting into relationships in real life.)
As it happens, that girl I tried to ask out (let's code-name her LA - it's where she comes from) bears a certain resemblance to Fionna Lee. Not only are they both half-Asian, but Fionna and LA have similar fashion sense, similar builds, and most importantly, similar personalities. They both have a certain fiery spunk, but can also be quite shy and reserved when they want to be. Of course, the resemblance was totally coincidental - I started writing Fionna almost three years before meeting LA - but it was enough that I actually attempted to use it as a flirting tool.
Yeah, look how well that turned out.
This has simply proven to be the latest, and worst, in a string of heartbreaks for me. Heartbreaks before I've even had a relationship - how fucked up is that?
My main problem is, again, my parents, who not only don't seem to want me dating, but also think I should meet a woman the way they themselves met. Dad made a friend or two, they set him up on a date with the woman who would be my mom, and the rest is history. I've told them countless times that even in my inexperience, I know dating today just doesn't work that way. For proof, I could call up all the times I've so much as attempted to make enough of a friendship with a girl that I could eventually ask her out and call her my girlfriend.
There are way too many of those, so I'll just go with my most recent experiences over the last year or so.
Winter 2016. Met a girl in my Graphic Novel class. Not only did she have great taste in just about everything (other than music - she liked Taylor Swift but not Coldplay, and I'm just the opposite, but I thought we could have potentially made it work), but she was, like me, a lapsed Catholic. Of course, I soon discovered she had a boyfriend. (But hey, she at least got me to listen to the complete Book of Mormon soundtrack. Too fucking funny!)
Spring 2016. Met a girl in my Shakespeare class. You might remember I wrote a poem about her - "Lady Smith." This girl, she was into Attack on Titan, to the point where I went and got a copy of the first book at the library and made it a point of reading it in front of her. I soon found out she had a boyfriend - to whom she's since become engaged. (And after a while, I stopped reading Attack on Titan too.)
Summer 2016. Long and lonely. Didn't get to go out and meet anyone.
Fall 2016...well, that was LA. From her, I'm moving on, slowly but surely. But with a full week of classes left this quarter, it's gonna be awkward af, especially if neither of us addresses the elephant in the room.
It's clear now. I absolutely, positively, undeniably suck at getting the girl. I not only consider it a sign of my ongoing immaturity, because I feel stuck at 17 mentally for so many reasons, but I also feel very bad about the fact that I often find myself wanting to date women just to say I've got a girlfriend, a Netflix viewing partner, a lover...hell, even a one-night stand. I ought to know better than that last one - I've got at least one online peep who speaks from experience when saying that's for no - but I'm also a very thirsty geekboy, desperate to feel like an adult for once in his life.
Again, I'm going back to the "blame my parents" well. Sure, I'm a socially awkward young man, being mildly autistic and all, so my undateability is somewhat on me too. But to my perception, my parents are also quite culpable, because they would have my hyperlexia define me. They've long used it as an excuse to hold me back socially and stunt my emotional growth. I've said before that they want me to be more of a Tobey Maguire Spider-Man than the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man I know I should be, but sometimes, I think they want worse. I think they would have me die alone and depressed, rather than spread my "defective" genes to the next generation. A bit of subtle eugenics that I don't think they're above, frankly. They've made it clear to me that they don't care enough about my mental or emotional health - probably thinking that my disorder makes me a psychological write-off. Why change now?
Okay, now I'm getting into territory I don't really care to tread. My point is, I need to step up my game if I'm ever to so much as date a woman, let alone eventually marry her or have kids with her. I can't just rely on meeting a woman with whom I click well in class, or perhaps at work, or anywhere in the narrow circle I get to exist in on the real-world, terrestrial plane. I can never find a single woman willing to date me this way, so I'll have to turn to the internet, somehow. Whether it's by a dating app, or if I someday wind up together with another writer I've met on Twitter or Wattpad or whatever, who knows?
Honestly, I'm sick of feeling so constantly, crushingly lonely. I play it too safe, and I want out of my claustrophobic shell. (Preferably on a route that takes me to Vancouver - outside this increasingly gone-to-shit country, and where I can potentially work as a TV writer. The Flash better still be in production three, five, even ten years from now!)
For now, I'm just a speedster boy, waiting for his Supergirl.
Till next time, Pinecones...
Unfortunately, largely thanks to my parents keeping me back and discouraging me from socializing and/or dating from my teenage years onward (not to mention me being stupid enough to parrot their values, which made me further ostracized because their largely religion-based conservatism is incompatible with Bay Area society in general), I've literally been single all my life. I've never had a girlfriend. I've never even kissed a girl.
So what the hell am I doing writing what that little boy from The Princess Bride would call "kissing books?" Wish fulfillment, partly, along with my heavy use of flight and super speed motifs to represent the freedom I crave. (I promise, though, some of the deadlier stuff that happens in Red Rain, etc. is NOT wish fulfillment. More like a reflection of how I think my parents would treat me getting into relationships in real life.)
As it happens, that girl I tried to ask out (let's code-name her LA - it's where she comes from) bears a certain resemblance to Fionna Lee. Not only are they both half-Asian, but Fionna and LA have similar fashion sense, similar builds, and most importantly, similar personalities. They both have a certain fiery spunk, but can also be quite shy and reserved when they want to be. Of course, the resemblance was totally coincidental - I started writing Fionna almost three years before meeting LA - but it was enough that I actually attempted to use it as a flirting tool.
Yeah, look how well that turned out.
This has simply proven to be the latest, and worst, in a string of heartbreaks for me. Heartbreaks before I've even had a relationship - how fucked up is that?
My main problem is, again, my parents, who not only don't seem to want me dating, but also think I should meet a woman the way they themselves met. Dad made a friend or two, they set him up on a date with the woman who would be my mom, and the rest is history. I've told them countless times that even in my inexperience, I know dating today just doesn't work that way. For proof, I could call up all the times I've so much as attempted to make enough of a friendship with a girl that I could eventually ask her out and call her my girlfriend.
There are way too many of those, so I'll just go with my most recent experiences over the last year or so.
Winter 2016. Met a girl in my Graphic Novel class. Not only did she have great taste in just about everything (other than music - she liked Taylor Swift but not Coldplay, and I'm just the opposite, but I thought we could have potentially made it work), but she was, like me, a lapsed Catholic. Of course, I soon discovered she had a boyfriend. (But hey, she at least got me to listen to the complete Book of Mormon soundtrack. Too fucking funny!)
Spring 2016. Met a girl in my Shakespeare class. You might remember I wrote a poem about her - "Lady Smith." This girl, she was into Attack on Titan, to the point where I went and got a copy of the first book at the library and made it a point of reading it in front of her. I soon found out she had a boyfriend - to whom she's since become engaged. (And after a while, I stopped reading Attack on Titan too.)
Summer 2016. Long and lonely. Didn't get to go out and meet anyone.
Fall 2016...well, that was LA. From her, I'm moving on, slowly but surely. But with a full week of classes left this quarter, it's gonna be awkward af, especially if neither of us addresses the elephant in the room.
It's clear now. I absolutely, positively, undeniably suck at getting the girl. I not only consider it a sign of my ongoing immaturity, because I feel stuck at 17 mentally for so many reasons, but I also feel very bad about the fact that I often find myself wanting to date women just to say I've got a girlfriend, a Netflix viewing partner, a lover...hell, even a one-night stand. I ought to know better than that last one - I've got at least one online peep who speaks from experience when saying that's for no - but I'm also a very thirsty geekboy, desperate to feel like an adult for once in his life.
Again, I'm going back to the "blame my parents" well. Sure, I'm a socially awkward young man, being mildly autistic and all, so my undateability is somewhat on me too. But to my perception, my parents are also quite culpable, because they would have my hyperlexia define me. They've long used it as an excuse to hold me back socially and stunt my emotional growth. I've said before that they want me to be more of a Tobey Maguire Spider-Man than the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man I know I should be, but sometimes, I think they want worse. I think they would have me die alone and depressed, rather than spread my "defective" genes to the next generation. A bit of subtle eugenics that I don't think they're above, frankly. They've made it clear to me that they don't care enough about my mental or emotional health - probably thinking that my disorder makes me a psychological write-off. Why change now?
Okay, now I'm getting into territory I don't really care to tread. My point is, I need to step up my game if I'm ever to so much as date a woman, let alone eventually marry her or have kids with her. I can't just rely on meeting a woman with whom I click well in class, or perhaps at work, or anywhere in the narrow circle I get to exist in on the real-world, terrestrial plane. I can never find a single woman willing to date me this way, so I'll have to turn to the internet, somehow. Whether it's by a dating app, or if I someday wind up together with another writer I've met on Twitter or Wattpad or whatever, who knows?
Honestly, I'm sick of feeling so constantly, crushingly lonely. I play it too safe, and I want out of my claustrophobic shell. (Preferably on a route that takes me to Vancouver - outside this increasingly gone-to-shit country, and where I can potentially work as a TV writer. The Flash better still be in production three, five, even ten years from now!)
For now, I'm just a speedster boy, waiting for his Supergirl.
Till next time, Pinecones...
 |
| #FeedTheRightWolf |
 |
| Remember - Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
Friday, May 20, 2016
Best And Worst Of The 2015-16 TV Season
This TV season may not be quite over yet (the party don't end till The Flash walks out, and even then there's still gonna be quite a few stragglers still keeping on going!) But now, in the wake of a truly epic season finale for one of my favorite shows, I think it's high time I put my thoughts out there on the shows I loved the most this season - and those that didn't impress me so much, for whatever reason.
So, let's get my Five Worst out of the way first.
5. Castle
Well, it pains me to start here, but I just have to get this out there...I love Castle. As a writer, I'm required by law to love it. But this season, they really just lost the plot with the annoying "Castle and Beckett separated for his own safety because LokSat" storyline, which dragged on and on and on and on...it alienated my dad as a viewer, and he quit the show about halfway through the season. I would have quit as well if Season 9 were to have been green-lit by ABC without Beckett - an unforgivable sin in the eyes of many, which, I think, is why it ultimately got canned.
4. Game of Silence
Basically, if you hire Niels Arden Oplev as your pilot director, I'm guaranteed to at least try your show out. I got into Mr. Robot this way, and same goes for the highly-underrated Under The Dome. A pity the same couldn't be said for Game of Silence. Even before NBC cancelled this one due to low ratings, I sensed that this show wasn't going anywhere fast, with its ridiculously twisted plot - and not in a good way. At least the pilot was effective and powerful stuff, and also the second episode...but frankly, I had the horrible feeling that the ongoing arc with the "family values" politician and his dirty secret past (of course, and he's probably Republican too, no?) wasn't going to resolve itself anytime soon.
3. American Horror Story: Hotel
I love FX's super-popular dark anthology, even if it's oftentimes ridiculous and overwrought and borrows too much inspiration from schlocky scare-fests of yesteryear. Sadly, AHS: Hotel was a massive come-down of a season, harking back to the ultra-dark days of Murder House. Granted, there's something to be said for this season's primary themes being addiction and excess, but that doesn't make it any less hard to watch. And at least there were some likable people in this ensemble, unlike Murder House. But like Murder House, Hotel was saddled with ridiculously wall-to-wall sex and violence, a fairly predictable main plot, and too many dead-end subplots to count. Here's hoping this "return to form" is only temporary.
2. Scream Queens
Ryan Murphy hasn't been having a good year in terms of quality, I don't think. His other big project had promise for taking more modern inspiration (90s slasher movies like, duh, Scream!) than the obscure, even pretentious, historical and/or Old Hollywood references that have become bread-and-butter for AHS. Unfortunately, when Murphy's trying to go for laughs, it doesn't work nearly as well as the often-unintentional ones of AHS. At least Scream Queens had some memorable deaths in its early episodes (Ariana Grande live-tweeting hers, Nick Jonas getting crucified to the sounds of "Sunglasses at Night" - and later turning up alive again!) And, of course, Jamie Lee Curtis reenacting the shower scene from Psycho. But overall, the show was bogged down by its relentlessly detestable cast of characters and overabundance of disgusting, trying-too-hard-for-funny moments (that one guy who had such a death fetish that he would go to the cemetery and jerk off? Well, apart from giving a whole new meaning to "grave rubbing..." I mean, come on!) I'm still surprised Fox gave Season 2 the green light, and like with True Detective, I'm not coming back.
1. Quantico
My parents and I were really looking forward to this one going into the start of the fall season, especially after seeing a pretty nice featurette for it while waiting to start Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation in the theater. As it turns out, though, ABC's timely, topical terrorism thriller started out with a strong, strong pilot, only to quickly dissolve into so much soap-opera drama (even pointing out its own soap-opera nature, so points for self-awareness) that it overshadowed the terrorist-plot elements completely. (It certainly didn't help that the story was told in a present-day timeline following the attack, as well as pervasive flashbacks, which were surprisingly hard to tell apart.) For me, red flags were also raised when I saw comparisons to Homeland and How To Get Away With Murder (both of which I can't stand), and when I learned that the show's creator was a former Gossip Girl writer (which explains the drama, at least.) My parents gave up after three episodes, and I gave up after seven, if only to see a little more of Rick Cosnett and remind myself of when he used to play Eddie Thawne. How people continued to eat this up enough for it to be renewed for Season 2 is a mystery to me.
And now for my Five Best!
5. Limitless
Oh, CBS. You have seriously, seriously dropped the ball by not renewing this show - and also, you may have possibly reignited the Tuesdays-at-10 curse that killed Threshold, Jericho (the second time), (almost) The Amazing Race, and, more recently, Person of Interest. At least it had the chance to run a full season, though. And it certainly did a great job of striking the balance between light and darkness. For instance, the pilot was pretty close in tone to the 2011 film to which the series is a sequel, but the second episode was far more lighthearted and funny and introduced the slick, cartoony sense of humor that really helped me appreciate the show much more. Being the product of a creative team that involved producers from Elementary, Sleepy Hollow, and The Amazing Spider-Man movies just made Limitless automatically awesome by association - and, apparently, too good for CBS despite being their second-highest-rated new drama. If CBS doesn't find this show a new home (preferably not on Netflix - not everyone has it, you know!), they'll really, truly have failed this fandom.
4. Supergirl
CBS proved themselves stupid this spring by not renewing their two highest-rated freshman dramas - although, unlike with Limitless, the decision to jettison Supergirl from the lineup makes a little more sense. Budget issues were the main culprit, but there was also the fact that Supergirl just plain didn't fit into the CBS lineup very well. The CW lineup, on the other hand, looks like it'll be a much, much better fit (and, happily, I'm already seeing the CW advertising the move!) I just really wish the CW had gotten the series from the get-go, although being on CBS instead for its first year helped make the Flash crossover a lot more special. (Also, I'm still happily shipping SuperFlash, or, as I like to call them, KareBear.) Still, changing networks shouldn't change Supergirl's core awesomeness, the fact that she's just a great big ball of amazing alien sunshine who, along with her friends and family (and fans!) carries a wide range of emotions.
3. Colony
I just know Proxy Snyder would not appreciate it if his show weren't included in this list (and if you're not following him on Twitter, you should - @ProxySnyder is wickedly droll, take it from me!) Humor aside, though, this latest excellent USA series takes the ubiquitous dystopian thriller and presents it with a few surprising twists - chief among them, the fact that, even though we're pretty much conditioned to always root for the Resistance, here they're not really the good guys, just like the Transitional Authority isn't all bad (and some on both sides are worse than others, but let's not go there - spoilers, y'know.) Despite being set in the sunny LA Bloc, Colony is, morally, gray as a cloudy day - and that's just part of the excitement, because it makes for a highly unpredictable, ever-twisty plot.
2. The 100
Hoo boy...how this show went from internet darling to internet pariah so quickly, and all because of a couple of fan-favorite deaths. I can just imagine George R.R. Martin hearing of this from deep within his writing cave, laughing to himself, and adding another layer of violence to his own next fan-favorite death. Those of us who weren't daunted by the violence, however, were whipped into a different kind of fan frenzy this season - because as dark and bloody and heartbreaking and one-step-forward-three-goddamn-steps-back-for-our-poor-heroes as it got, we were so bound and determined that there would be some light at the end of the tunnel. And I don't mean the City of Light, people. I mean real light. Hope. Life. Survival. Endurance. That's the message of The 100 - because as much as Clarke might insist that "maybe there aren't any good guys," that's not true. As long as there's someone to root for...and this show boasts those in spades. It's just a shame that we won't be getting Season 4 in the fall...but we will be getting a Season 4, in spite of the anti-fan campaigns against the show. Ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim. We, the fans, will be chomping at the bit for the return - and, in the meantime, hoping that Adina Porter can get us access to Indra's Grounder Strip Mall.
May we meet again.
1. The Flash
My favorite show on TV right now, for so many reasons. All the Arrowverse shows are cool, but none as much as this, the second one to make its grand debut on the CW (hard to believe it was only two years ago, almost!) Thrills aplenty, tons of feels (I still tear up from so much as thinking of "The Runaway Dinosaur"), all the laughs (most of which are Cisco's fault), A-grade acting (we need to start a "For Your Consideration" campaign for Grant Gustin to get Best Actor for - what else? - "The Runaway Dinosaur!"), the general awesomeness of Barry's powers (if only I had them, because then I could have a stronger sense of freedom in my life) and did I mention the thrills? I'll never forget the episode that made this show my favorite, last season's "Out of Time." I mention it all the time (pun not intended), but seriously...not having read the comics beforehand really got me even more shocked at the ending of that one (and my DC-disdaining dad looked at me with a "What's wrong with you?" face when I was screaming what basically amounted to "OH MY GOD HOLY SHIT DID HE JUST RUN BACK IN TIME? FUCK YEAH!!!!") While this season's had its stumbles (a tendency to trip over itself on the time-travel plot threads, and also a few pretty clearly recycled elements from Season 1), they've more than made up for it with well-polished diamonds like the two-part Earth-2 episode, and of course "The Runaway Dinosaur" - and, this week, "Invincible," which again had a screamer of an ending. But not a happy scream, more of a devastated scream mimicking Barry's. Next week's finale...it's going to destroy me, I know it.
And thus endeth my Best and Worst lists...what do you guys think?
Till next time, Pinecones...
So, let's get my Five Worst out of the way first.
5. Castle
Well, it pains me to start here, but I just have to get this out there...I love Castle. As a writer, I'm required by law to love it. But this season, they really just lost the plot with the annoying "Castle and Beckett separated for his own safety because LokSat" storyline, which dragged on and on and on and on...it alienated my dad as a viewer, and he quit the show about halfway through the season. I would have quit as well if Season 9 were to have been green-lit by ABC without Beckett - an unforgivable sin in the eyes of many, which, I think, is why it ultimately got canned.
 |
| Caskett forever. Always. |
4. Game of Silence
Basically, if you hire Niels Arden Oplev as your pilot director, I'm guaranteed to at least try your show out. I got into Mr. Robot this way, and same goes for the highly-underrated Under The Dome. A pity the same couldn't be said for Game of Silence. Even before NBC cancelled this one due to low ratings, I sensed that this show wasn't going anywhere fast, with its ridiculously twisted plot - and not in a good way. At least the pilot was effective and powerful stuff, and also the second episode...but frankly, I had the horrible feeling that the ongoing arc with the "family values" politician and his dirty secret past (of course, and he's probably Republican too, no?) wasn't going to resolve itself anytime soon.
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| The real draw for this show: Bass Monroe from Revolution. |
3. American Horror Story: Hotel
I love FX's super-popular dark anthology, even if it's oftentimes ridiculous and overwrought and borrows too much inspiration from schlocky scare-fests of yesteryear. Sadly, AHS: Hotel was a massive come-down of a season, harking back to the ultra-dark days of Murder House. Granted, there's something to be said for this season's primary themes being addiction and excess, but that doesn't make it any less hard to watch. And at least there were some likable people in this ensemble, unlike Murder House. But like Murder House, Hotel was saddled with ridiculously wall-to-wall sex and violence, a fairly predictable main plot, and too many dead-end subplots to count. Here's hoping this "return to form" is only temporary.
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| "I want your ugly, I want your disease..." |
2. Scream Queens
Ryan Murphy hasn't been having a good year in terms of quality, I don't think. His other big project had promise for taking more modern inspiration (90s slasher movies like, duh, Scream!) than the obscure, even pretentious, historical and/or Old Hollywood references that have become bread-and-butter for AHS. Unfortunately, when Murphy's trying to go for laughs, it doesn't work nearly as well as the often-unintentional ones of AHS. At least Scream Queens had some memorable deaths in its early episodes (Ariana Grande live-tweeting hers, Nick Jonas getting crucified to the sounds of "Sunglasses at Night" - and later turning up alive again!) And, of course, Jamie Lee Curtis reenacting the shower scene from Psycho. But overall, the show was bogged down by its relentlessly detestable cast of characters and overabundance of disgusting, trying-too-hard-for-funny moments (that one guy who had such a death fetish that he would go to the cemetery and jerk off? Well, apart from giving a whole new meaning to "grave rubbing..." I mean, come on!) I'm still surprised Fox gave Season 2 the green light, and like with True Detective, I'm not coming back.
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| And Emma Roberts will still always be best-known for the infamous "Surprise, bitch!" line from Coven. |
1. Quantico
My parents and I were really looking forward to this one going into the start of the fall season, especially after seeing a pretty nice featurette for it while waiting to start Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation in the theater. As it turns out, though, ABC's timely, topical terrorism thriller started out with a strong, strong pilot, only to quickly dissolve into so much soap-opera drama (even pointing out its own soap-opera nature, so points for self-awareness) that it overshadowed the terrorist-plot elements completely. (It certainly didn't help that the story was told in a present-day timeline following the attack, as well as pervasive flashbacks, which were surprisingly hard to tell apart.) For me, red flags were also raised when I saw comparisons to Homeland and How To Get Away With Murder (both of which I can't stand), and when I learned that the show's creator was a former Gossip Girl writer (which explains the drama, at least.) My parents gave up after three episodes, and I gave up after seven, if only to see a little more of Rick Cosnett and remind myself of when he used to play Eddie Thawne. How people continued to eat this up enough for it to be renewed for Season 2 is a mystery to me.
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| As Cat Grant would say, "You look like the attractive, yet non- threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show." |
And now for my Five Best!
5. Limitless
Oh, CBS. You have seriously, seriously dropped the ball by not renewing this show - and also, you may have possibly reignited the Tuesdays-at-10 curse that killed Threshold, Jericho (the second time), (almost) The Amazing Race, and, more recently, Person of Interest. At least it had the chance to run a full season, though. And it certainly did a great job of striking the balance between light and darkness. For instance, the pilot was pretty close in tone to the 2011 film to which the series is a sequel, but the second episode was far more lighthearted and funny and introduced the slick, cartoony sense of humor that really helped me appreciate the show much more. Being the product of a creative team that involved producers from Elementary, Sleepy Hollow, and The Amazing Spider-Man movies just made Limitless automatically awesome by association - and, apparently, too good for CBS despite being their second-highest-rated new drama. If CBS doesn't find this show a new home (preferably not on Netflix - not everyone has it, you know!), they'll really, truly have failed this fandom.
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| Part of its Elementary/Sleepy Hollow/TASM pedigree also included a kick-ass theme tune. Just sayin'. |
4. Supergirl
CBS proved themselves stupid this spring by not renewing their two highest-rated freshman dramas - although, unlike with Limitless, the decision to jettison Supergirl from the lineup makes a little more sense. Budget issues were the main culprit, but there was also the fact that Supergirl just plain didn't fit into the CBS lineup very well. The CW lineup, on the other hand, looks like it'll be a much, much better fit (and, happily, I'm already seeing the CW advertising the move!) I just really wish the CW had gotten the series from the get-go, although being on CBS instead for its first year helped make the Flash crossover a lot more special. (Also, I'm still happily shipping SuperFlash, or, as I like to call them, KareBear.) Still, changing networks shouldn't change Supergirl's core awesomeness, the fact that she's just a great big ball of amazing alien sunshine who, along with her friends and family (and fans!) carries a wide range of emotions.
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| Rock on, Angel From Krypton. <3 |
3. Colony
I just know Proxy Snyder would not appreciate it if his show weren't included in this list (and if you're not following him on Twitter, you should - @ProxySnyder is wickedly droll, take it from me!) Humor aside, though, this latest excellent USA series takes the ubiquitous dystopian thriller and presents it with a few surprising twists - chief among them, the fact that, even though we're pretty much conditioned to always root for the Resistance, here they're not really the good guys, just like the Transitional Authority isn't all bad (and some on both sides are worse than others, but let's not go there - spoilers, y'know.) Despite being set in the sunny LA Bloc, Colony is, morally, gray as a cloudy day - and that's just part of the excitement, because it makes for a highly unpredictable, ever-twisty plot.
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| And yes, it's got Lost in its DNA. That alone makes it one of the best. |
2. The 100
Hoo boy...how this show went from internet darling to internet pariah so quickly, and all because of a couple of fan-favorite deaths. I can just imagine George R.R. Martin hearing of this from deep within his writing cave, laughing to himself, and adding another layer of violence to his own next fan-favorite death. Those of us who weren't daunted by the violence, however, were whipped into a different kind of fan frenzy this season - because as dark and bloody and heartbreaking and one-step-forward-three-goddamn-steps-back-for-our-poor-heroes as it got, we were so bound and determined that there would be some light at the end of the tunnel. And I don't mean the City of Light, people. I mean real light. Hope. Life. Survival. Endurance. That's the message of The 100 - because as much as Clarke might insist that "maybe there aren't any good guys," that's not true. As long as there's someone to root for...and this show boasts those in spades. It's just a shame that we won't be getting Season 4 in the fall...but we will be getting a Season 4, in spite of the anti-fan campaigns against the show. Ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim. We, the fans, will be chomping at the bit for the return - and, in the meantime, hoping that Adina Porter can get us access to Indra's Grounder Strip Mall.
May we meet again.
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| Although I'll say this much - Wanheda Clarke's red hair? I'm kinda glad she went back to blonde. It suits her better. |
1. The Flash
My favorite show on TV right now, for so many reasons. All the Arrowverse shows are cool, but none as much as this, the second one to make its grand debut on the CW (hard to believe it was only two years ago, almost!) Thrills aplenty, tons of feels (I still tear up from so much as thinking of "The Runaway Dinosaur"), all the laughs (most of which are Cisco's fault), A-grade acting (we need to start a "For Your Consideration" campaign for Grant Gustin to get Best Actor for - what else? - "The Runaway Dinosaur!"), the general awesomeness of Barry's powers (if only I had them, because then I could have a stronger sense of freedom in my life) and did I mention the thrills? I'll never forget the episode that made this show my favorite, last season's "Out of Time." I mention it all the time (pun not intended), but seriously...not having read the comics beforehand really got me even more shocked at the ending of that one (and my DC-disdaining dad looked at me with a "What's wrong with you?" face when I was screaming what basically amounted to "OH MY GOD HOLY SHIT DID HE JUST RUN BACK IN TIME? FUCK YEAH!!!!") While this season's had its stumbles (a tendency to trip over itself on the time-travel plot threads, and also a few pretty clearly recycled elements from Season 1), they've more than made up for it with well-polished diamonds like the two-part Earth-2 episode, and of course "The Runaway Dinosaur" - and, this week, "Invincible," which again had a screamer of an ending. But not a happy scream, more of a devastated scream mimicking Barry's. Next week's finale...it's going to destroy me, I know it.
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| It's go time. Run, Barry. Run! |
And thus endeth my Best and Worst lists...what do you guys think?
Till next time, Pinecones...
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| #FeedTheRightWolf |
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| Remember - Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
Saturday, April 2, 2016
The Nerdy Girl Express: Stitchers and Feelings
Recently, I wrote a short but personal article about the Freeform fan-favorite series, Stitchers, which I decided to share with the fine ladies at The Nerdy Girl Express. They happily agreed to put up my article, "Stitchers and Feelings," on their site today, in honor of World Autism Awareness Day.
You may now read my NGE guest post in all its fine glory here.
Happy weekend, Pinecones! :D
You may now read my NGE guest post in all its fine glory here.
Happy weekend, Pinecones! :D
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Batman v Superman: Snyder's Super-Anti-Heroes
If there's one thing we know about Zack Snyder, it's that his movies are filled with top-notch CGI, tons of slow-mo, IMAX camera work, and are supremely dark, sometimes just for the sake of darkness.
Mr. Snyder's latest, Batman v Superman, is no exception. It appears, based on the largely negative response from the critics, that people in some circles are growing tired of his continued insistence on delving into the grimdark side of what comic book movies can be - and I don't quite blame them. I mean, just look at the other major DC adaptation series, the Arrowverse, which is (other than its parent series) beloved for being exactly the anti-Snyder - lighthearted, full of humor and action, and knowing exactly when to turn the emotional dial up to eleven.
Not to mention, now that Wonder Woman's here, soon the rest of the Justice League will follow. And luckily, we get a bit of video footage of three of them in one scene in this movie. Jason Momoa's Aquaman is every bit as dangerous and awesome as he should be (no longer shall that character be such a joke in the fandom!) and while Cyborg's cameo footage focused more on Silas Stone, we at least still got to see the beginnings of Victor's partially-robotified self. Sadly, Ezra Miller failed to impress either me or my friend in his version of Barry Allen - particularly because we only got to see him in his civilian life, forced to use his powers to foil a convenience-store robbery while he's out buying milk. (Possible Amazing Spider-Man reference? Or am I just looking too hard?) In any case, my friend prefers the classic Flash, Jay Garrick, and really loves Teddy Sears' performance on the CW series. And as for me, well, there's really no beating Grant Gustin, because just like Andrew Garfield is Spider-Man for me, Gustin is The Flash, and I'm thinking I won't enjoy Miller's interpretation of the character nearly as much. Knowing that we're not getting either of the Arrowverse versions of the character in the DCEU is just plain sucky, especially compared to Marvel's live-action ABC and Netflix series, which are all explicitly part of the cinematic universe. And when you take into account that the Arrowverse also is explicitly a multiverse, and that Earth-2 Barry has Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Batman on speed dial, it sucks even more that they're keeping 'em separated.
Oh, and one more stray (and slightly spoiler-y) observation...
Mr. Snyder's latest, Batman v Superman, is no exception. It appears, based on the largely negative response from the critics, that people in some circles are growing tired of his continued insistence on delving into the grimdark side of what comic book movies can be - and I don't quite blame them. I mean, just look at the other major DC adaptation series, the Arrowverse, which is (other than its parent series) beloved for being exactly the anti-Snyder - lighthearted, full of humor and action, and knowing exactly when to turn the emotional dial up to eleven.
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| And also, ice cream sweetness for Lord Mesa to put in his artwork. |
So, going into this movie, I expected something a little more Nolan-esque, but with far more fantasy elements involved because, well, Superman. I've seen Man of Steel maybe one and a half times (I sort of remember giving up halfway through it the first time, because at the time, I really had no idea how Superman worked, but later I learned that Snyder took a much darker turn to deconstruct the mythos of this hero, allowing me to appreciate his movie better the second time around.) Thankfully, I didn't have to remember too much of that movie for this sequel, especially given that BvS begins with a different side of events during the Supes/Zod battle over Metropolis. First off, holy freaking crap, I forgot just how destructive that was...and second off, through Bruce Wayne's eyes, we get to see some human casualties, and Bruce actually does what he can to help people stuck in the ruins of his Metropolis office. (Wait, he has a Metropolis office? And wait again - Bruce is being a hero today instead of Batman? Well, desperate times and all that.) This scene helps establish that we're watching not so much Superman's movie as Batman's, so naturally, Snyder uses this as a chance to turn up the darkness.
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| And the hellfire. Please don't forget that. |
Our two title characters' primary antagonist is Lex Luthor, here played by Jesse Eisenberg. Like many of the casting choices in this movie, Eisenberg was immediately criticized by fans, only to later turn out to be shockingly good. While still polarizing, Eisenberg's Lex Luthor still makes a profound impact, if only for his over-the-top (and, quite often, legitimately creepy) performance. His Lex Luthor doesn't borrow from that of Michael Rosenbaum on Smallville (the only other Lex Luthor I've yet seen - I've never really been in Superman fandom, so I've never seen any of the old movies, or even Superman Returns), but instead, Eisenberg combines elements of the Joker and Erich Blunt, the software engineer played by Tom Felton (yes, THAT Tom Felton!) on Murder in the First. You know, right away, that he's a seriously messed-up dude, because as much as he wants to come across as fun and friendly, he just plain overdoes it. I'm especially looking at the scene where he makes his demands regarding a big hunk of kryptonite recently found in the Indian Ocean, and feeds this government-bureaucrat type dude a piece of candy in the process. Also, there's the part where he invites Holly Hunter's character, Senator Finch (R-KY - I'm assuming she's Republican, anyway, but she seems far more well-adjusted and rational than most in that party these days) into his study, which looks like something straight out of Hannibal in its opulence and adornment with a freakishly Biblical painting of angels and demons. (Luthor turns the painting upside down, to make it appear that the demons come from the heavens.) All in all, he's basically a great big upstart, wanting so badly to make a name for himself but not entirely possessed of the charisma to back up his goals - and therein lies the source of his imminent psychosis.
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| Trick or treat! Gimme all the Jolly Ranchers! |
Also on the side of good, though, is Wonder Woman. Eagerly awaited, and for good reason, she's presented here as a sort of DC analogue to Black Widow in that she starts out looking like a seemingly innocuous - if quite glamorous - side character, only for her secret past to be very slowly revealed. And then cometh the ass-kicking (complete with a rocking leitmotif that I need on my iPod!) as we learn just how much of an Action Girl this demigoddess truly is.
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| Bats: She with you? Supes: I thought she was with you! |
Not to mention, now that Wonder Woman's here, soon the rest of the Justice League will follow. And luckily, we get a bit of video footage of three of them in one scene in this movie. Jason Momoa's Aquaman is every bit as dangerous and awesome as he should be (no longer shall that character be such a joke in the fandom!) and while Cyborg's cameo footage focused more on Silas Stone, we at least still got to see the beginnings of Victor's partially-robotified self. Sadly, Ezra Miller failed to impress either me or my friend in his version of Barry Allen - particularly because we only got to see him in his civilian life, forced to use his powers to foil a convenience-store robbery while he's out buying milk. (Possible Amazing Spider-Man reference? Or am I just looking too hard?) In any case, my friend prefers the classic Flash, Jay Garrick, and really loves Teddy Sears' performance on the CW series. And as for me, well, there's really no beating Grant Gustin, because just like Andrew Garfield is Spider-Man for me, Gustin is The Flash, and I'm thinking I won't enjoy Miller's interpretation of the character nearly as much. Knowing that we're not getting either of the Arrowverse versions of the character in the DCEU is just plain sucky, especially compared to Marvel's live-action ABC and Netflix series, which are all explicitly part of the cinematic universe. And when you take into account that the Arrowverse also is explicitly a multiverse, and that Earth-2 Barry has Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Batman on speed dial, it sucks even more that they're keeping 'em separated.
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| Tell me about it, Ramon. :) |
Overall, this is perhaps the most operatic superhero movie since maybe Snyder's earlier opus, Watchmen. It's tons darker than any of its Marvel competitors, and it's full of destruction and psychosis and emotional torture to its characters. It's also very long, so there are a few moments where the action devolves into something less exhilarating and more numbing and fatiguing (although usually, there's another big shocking set piece not long afterwards to make the viewer sit up and take notice - I won't spoil the biggest one, but let's just say if you scream out loud when it happens, I won't blame you.) So, unlike many Marvel movies, there's really not much room to feel any feels - although one major death at the end made me tear up just a bit, and I swear I heard at least one little kid ugly-crying a few rows ahead.
For all the negativity this movie's gotten, though, it's no slouch in the acting, writing, directing, music, or visual departments. So, while it's often quite flawed, and I can't say whether or not I'll ever see it again (except maybe with my dad if he's interested in checking out the DVD), I will hereby bestow upon Batman v Superman a grade of B, for "Batman." (No, seriously, he - and, by extension, Ben Affleck - was the real top hero of the movie, and don't let anyone forget it!)
Till next time, Pinecones...
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| #FeedTheRightWolf |
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| Remember - Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
Oh, and one more stray (and slightly spoiler-y) observation...
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| Goddammit, Jared Leto. |
That part where we saw the vandalized remains of the Robin suit, foreshadowing the Joker's appearance in Suicide Squad this summer...that was the most painful part of the movie for me, because instead of seeing that, I could instead see what it must have looked like when Bruce grieved for his lost kid. What can I say? Writing no less than four past and/or present incarnations of Robin into my Spidey & Speedy fanfics has made me feel very protective of these guys, I guess.
Monday, March 7, 2016
The 100: An Open Letter To Jason Rothenberg
***WARNING TO ANYONE ELSE WHO MAY READ THIS: MAJOR SPOILER ALERT***
Dear Mr. Rothenberg,
Recently, I put out my list of the top 5 of everything of 2015, and The 100 (which holds the additional distinction of being the first and only CW show my dad will watch with me, which speaks volumes about its widespread crossover appeal) had no problem making the list. Unfortunately, I've fallen behind by two episodes, but because of the recent internet explosion revolving around last week's episode, I've been completely, utterly unable to avoid the spoilers, so I'm now painfully aware that a favorite character of mine is now dead.
Now, because The 100 has such a dedicated fan base, this isn't my first time getting key plot developments spoiled for me. As such, I'm not as mad about it as I perhaps ought to be. All the madness I've seen appears to be concentrated in other fans and their considerable outrage over Lexa's death.
The purpose of this letter is not to join their ranks and criticize this particular storytelling decision, however. Instead, I'd like to empathize with you and all your writers. I know you probably don't need anyone to come to your defense, but I'd just like to offer my thoughts all the same.
The main objection to Lexa's death, as far as I can see, is that it constitutes an example of not only the infamous "stuffed in the fridge" trope, but also "Bury Your Gays." Yes, those are some pretty unfortunate implications. But as a fan who's really come to appreciate The 100 for its remarkable progressivism, I believe that being a member of a minority shouldn't guarantee a character's survival just because certain people would see it as sexist, homophobic, racist, etc. All over the internet, I've seen people place the message "Gender Doesn't Matter" on their profiles. If that's the case, then it also shouldn't matter whether a dead character is straight, gay, bi, or anywhere in between. If a character's death has a profound impact on not only the fans, but also on that character's loved ones in-universe, then it was written in the best possible way - never mind that there really shouldn't be a "best" way to write a death.
In my own writing, I've killed off several characters myself. Some of these have been women, and some have been LGBT. And yet, so far, I've received little to no backlash about it. It could be that I'm just not high-profile enough for such backlash, or it could be that my works tend to treat death as an extension of life, in much the same way as the TV series Dead Like Me deals with the Mundane Fantastic adventures of its undead reapers, so "dead" characters continue to interact with the living and be vital to the plot.
In any case, the reaction from my readers on my books, Red Rain, Blue Monday, and White Shadows, has been not outrage over "targeting" minorities, but rather grief over the deaths of favorite characters, with their gender, race, and sexual orientation hardly figuring in at all. They understand that it's far less about sinking into any kind of cheap, unjust trope than it is about the fact that these deaths hurt my hero the most, and take him to dark places from which he must fight to return.
One day, I'll publish Red Rain and its sequels, and based on the example I've seen from The 100 (as well as, for instance, the death of Sara Lance on Arrow), I accept that the deaths in this series, once they reach a wider audience, will meet with disgust and disdain from certain pockets of the internet. But I cannot, and will not, change the story just to stave off this kind of negative reaction. I'd like to think my story has teeth, and I will not remove them - because part of creating great works involves sharing our emotions with our readers, viewers, etc. That, of course, includes the grief we experience when popular characters (and products of our fruitful imaginations) die.
Looking forward to catching up on The 100,
Ricky Pine
Dear Mr. Rothenberg,
Recently, I put out my list of the top 5 of everything of 2015, and The 100 (which holds the additional distinction of being the first and only CW show my dad will watch with me, which speaks volumes about its widespread crossover appeal) had no problem making the list. Unfortunately, I've fallen behind by two episodes, but because of the recent internet explosion revolving around last week's episode, I've been completely, utterly unable to avoid the spoilers, so I'm now painfully aware that a favorite character of mine is now dead.
Now, because The 100 has such a dedicated fan base, this isn't my first time getting key plot developments spoiled for me. As such, I'm not as mad about it as I perhaps ought to be. All the madness I've seen appears to be concentrated in other fans and their considerable outrage over Lexa's death.
The purpose of this letter is not to join their ranks and criticize this particular storytelling decision, however. Instead, I'd like to empathize with you and all your writers. I know you probably don't need anyone to come to your defense, but I'd just like to offer my thoughts all the same.
The main objection to Lexa's death, as far as I can see, is that it constitutes an example of not only the infamous "stuffed in the fridge" trope, but also "Bury Your Gays." Yes, those are some pretty unfortunate implications. But as a fan who's really come to appreciate The 100 for its remarkable progressivism, I believe that being a member of a minority shouldn't guarantee a character's survival just because certain people would see it as sexist, homophobic, racist, etc. All over the internet, I've seen people place the message "Gender Doesn't Matter" on their profiles. If that's the case, then it also shouldn't matter whether a dead character is straight, gay, bi, or anywhere in between. If a character's death has a profound impact on not only the fans, but also on that character's loved ones in-universe, then it was written in the best possible way - never mind that there really shouldn't be a "best" way to write a death.
In my own writing, I've killed off several characters myself. Some of these have been women, and some have been LGBT. And yet, so far, I've received little to no backlash about it. It could be that I'm just not high-profile enough for such backlash, or it could be that my works tend to treat death as an extension of life, in much the same way as the TV series Dead Like Me deals with the Mundane Fantastic adventures of its undead reapers, so "dead" characters continue to interact with the living and be vital to the plot.
In any case, the reaction from my readers on my books, Red Rain, Blue Monday, and White Shadows, has been not outrage over "targeting" minorities, but rather grief over the deaths of favorite characters, with their gender, race, and sexual orientation hardly figuring in at all. They understand that it's far less about sinking into any kind of cheap, unjust trope than it is about the fact that these deaths hurt my hero the most, and take him to dark places from which he must fight to return.
One day, I'll publish Red Rain and its sequels, and based on the example I've seen from The 100 (as well as, for instance, the death of Sara Lance on Arrow), I accept that the deaths in this series, once they reach a wider audience, will meet with disgust and disdain from certain pockets of the internet. But I cannot, and will not, change the story just to stave off this kind of negative reaction. I'd like to think my story has teeth, and I will not remove them - because part of creating great works involves sharing our emotions with our readers, viewers, etc. That, of course, includes the grief we experience when popular characters (and products of our fruitful imaginations) die.
Looking forward to catching up on The 100,
Ricky Pine
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Why I Write: Freedom Of Love
"We know that we're young
And no shit, we're confused
But will you watch us drown?
What are you so afraid to lose?"
-Arcade Fire, "We Exist"
"What's your problem with religion?"
..."It's not religion itself, it's what people use it for - against other people."
-J.L. Pawley, Generation Icarus: First Flight
When piecing together the histories and personalities of my Red Rain characters Alex and Gabe, it's pretty much an open secret that they're other, better versions of me - and especially other, better versions of Teen Me. Sure, I can look back on some moments of my teenage years fondly, but looking back on myself as a person, perhaps not. I still have trouble looking on myself in a positive light in the present day, and I'd like to think the major reason is this:
I don't feel free to love.
Why, you might ask? Well, let's get personal here (about myself, I mean.)
Flash back a couple of years to early 2014, when I took my first creative writing class and began finally, in earnest, writing my first complete story, the very earliest drafts of Red Rain. When I thought up Alex and Gabe, almost right from the get-go I knew these twins would be opposites in a lot of key ways. For example, Alex would be dark-haired (and, in more recent drafts not yet available for public consumption, dark-skinned to better reflect his and Gabe's part-Mediterranean blood), and Gabe would be blond. Alex would be introspective and moody, while Gabe would be funny and extroverted. And, perhaps most importantly of all (because I've built so much of the story around it that to change it, as I'm sure my parents would insist I do if they were to become beta readers of mine, would require massive overhauls that I just can't take on), Alex is straight and Gabe is gay.
These, everyone who's read Red Rain knows. Now I'll tell you some of the secret history behind these particular characterization decisions.
Alex and Gabe's opposite orientations were born out of more than just me wanting to emulate the examples of Cassandra Clare, Rick Riordan, Zac Brewer, Andrew Smith, and Michael Grant (and, more recently, Adam Silvera), among others, by including quality LGBTQ representation in my writing. Another, more personal reason was my own adolescent confusion about my sexuality. For about four or five years, starting around...junior year of high school, I think? I was the Q in LGBTQ. For a wide variety of reasons, I was constantly questioning my sexuality. I'd like to think I have a better idea of where I am on the spectrum by now, but back then, I angsted way too much about it. The culmination of said angst came, incidentally, while I was still writing the first draft of Red Rain. In an attempt to finally settle the issue once and for all, I tried coming out as bi, because that was where I saw myself at the time. My parents, of course, were having none of that, not only because of their being Catholic, but also because, in their reasoning, how could I possibly be so sure of such a thing when I'd had zero romantic and/or sexual experience?
Yeah, I know, that's a very stupid thing to say. After all, nobody asks straight people if they've slept with someone of the opposite sex to confirm their sexuality, right? But, unbelievably, it had an actual impact on me, prompting me to do a little soul-searching over the next little while and eventually figuring that any same-sex attraction I had was little more than curiosity, and not the desire to form a committed relationship. I could truly only see myself getting together long-term with a woman. So, as far as the question of what my sexuality is, I consider myself straight, though not exclusively so. That did not, however, stop my experiences from informing a few future story details which I later wrote into Blue Monday, most notably Kyle's explanation of what it was like to come out as bi to his parents:
"Funny thing is, they were like, if I were completely not into girls, they wouldn't like it, but they'd accept it anyway 'cause I was their son and all. But they couldn't wrap their minds around the idea of me going both ways...Hell, I think they were scared of the idea. To think their own son could freely decide which gender he'd sleep with."
Sometimes, parents just don't understand. And what my own parents don't understand is that we humans really need to have the chance to figure out their love lives for themselves, especially when we're teenagers and (like me) young adults.
This is something I've struggled with for a long time - how to get into a loving relationship while retaining parental approval. For the most part, however, I have the feeling this is going to be extremely difficult, if not outright impossible. And this is where religion plays a major role - because while my parents still take their religion pretty seriously (not as much as most, thank God), I no longer do. At this point, I don't go to church willingly anymore - my parents, literally, force me to come with them, even when I've told them countless times that I don't belong there anymore. I go through the motions, and my heart isn't in it anymore. I don't feel that I'm a good Catholic - maybe I never really was. And the main reason why I don't count myself as a religious person anymore is because I've come to associate religion with repression, and especially sexual repression - not only for the LGBTQ community, but for humanity in general. I'm no atheist, however. I still believe in God. But I don't believe that some of the rules people insist on following in His name are really what He intended for our species. Waiting till marriage? I don't think that should be a requirement to get into Heaven. But my parents believe differently, and would probably think so much less of me if I were to take any future relationship of mine sexual. (Never mind that my dad's long since given me "The Talk," I still believe he would judge me just as much as my mom would.) Though it's far from the only factor in my lack of any committed relationships to date, it's one of the most prominent ones. I just don't want to get together with a woman who seems so right for me, only for my neurotic Catholic guilt to rear its ugly head and prevent us from getting intimate if that's the course nature feels is the best one to take.
What this all boils down to is that the gay rights movement focuses on the right to love whomever you love. This, I believe, is a fundamental right for all human beings. This is why I not only write LGBTQ characters, but also write characters who don't feel pressure from their peers and/or their families to not explore their sexuality. This is the wish-fulfillment aspect of my writing (well, that and the fact that everyone in my writing speaks fluent pop-culture references.)
Please, don't take this blog post as a condemnation of all religion. For many of my fellow humans, it's such an essential part of their lives. But it's just not for me. My parents are convinced that it's just a phase because I'm young, and that I might find myself seeking God again when I'm older. But me? I think I've already found God through my writing, and He's not exactly the same one in which I was brought up to believe. He's just...better. More accepting. And perhaps, as God Mode Castiel says on Supernatural...
Till next time, Pinecones...
Yeah, I know, that's a very stupid thing to say. After all, nobody asks straight people if they've slept with someone of the opposite sex to confirm their sexuality, right? But, unbelievably, it had an actual impact on me, prompting me to do a little soul-searching over the next little while and eventually figuring that any same-sex attraction I had was little more than curiosity, and not the desire to form a committed relationship. I could truly only see myself getting together long-term with a woman. So, as far as the question of what my sexuality is, I consider myself straight, though not exclusively so. That did not, however, stop my experiences from informing a few future story details which I later wrote into Blue Monday, most notably Kyle's explanation of what it was like to come out as bi to his parents:
"Funny thing is, they were like, if I were completely not into girls, they wouldn't like it, but they'd accept it anyway 'cause I was their son and all. But they couldn't wrap their minds around the idea of me going both ways...Hell, I think they were scared of the idea. To think their own son could freely decide which gender he'd sleep with."
Sometimes, parents just don't understand. And what my own parents don't understand is that we humans really need to have the chance to figure out their love lives for themselves, especially when we're teenagers and (like me) young adults.
This is something I've struggled with for a long time - how to get into a loving relationship while retaining parental approval. For the most part, however, I have the feeling this is going to be extremely difficult, if not outright impossible. And this is where religion plays a major role - because while my parents still take their religion pretty seriously (not as much as most, thank God), I no longer do. At this point, I don't go to church willingly anymore - my parents, literally, force me to come with them, even when I've told them countless times that I don't belong there anymore. I go through the motions, and my heart isn't in it anymore. I don't feel that I'm a good Catholic - maybe I never really was. And the main reason why I don't count myself as a religious person anymore is because I've come to associate religion with repression, and especially sexual repression - not only for the LGBTQ community, but for humanity in general. I'm no atheist, however. I still believe in God. But I don't believe that some of the rules people insist on following in His name are really what He intended for our species. Waiting till marriage? I don't think that should be a requirement to get into Heaven. But my parents believe differently, and would probably think so much less of me if I were to take any future relationship of mine sexual. (Never mind that my dad's long since given me "The Talk," I still believe he would judge me just as much as my mom would.) Though it's far from the only factor in my lack of any committed relationships to date, it's one of the most prominent ones. I just don't want to get together with a woman who seems so right for me, only for my neurotic Catholic guilt to rear its ugly head and prevent us from getting intimate if that's the course nature feels is the best one to take.
What this all boils down to is that the gay rights movement focuses on the right to love whomever you love. This, I believe, is a fundamental right for all human beings. This is why I not only write LGBTQ characters, but also write characters who don't feel pressure from their peers and/or their families to not explore their sexuality. This is the wish-fulfillment aspect of my writing (well, that and the fact that everyone in my writing speaks fluent pop-culture references.)
Please, don't take this blog post as a condemnation of all religion. For many of my fellow humans, it's such an essential part of their lives. But it's just not for me. My parents are convinced that it's just a phase because I'm young, and that I might find myself seeking God again when I'm older. But me? I think I've already found God through my writing, and He's not exactly the same one in which I was brought up to believe. He's just...better. More accepting. And perhaps, as God Mode Castiel says on Supernatural...
 |
| One little scene, so much impact. |
Till next time, Pinecones...
 |
| #FeedTheRightWolf |
 |
| Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
The Flash: Of Speedsters And Sweethearts
***SPOILER ALERT***
I'm not too big on math. We haven't been on good terms in years. But today, I'll persuade her to help me demonstrate a few things re: last night's episode of The Flash in simple terms.
Barry Allen + Patty Spivot = Batty.
Batty on the CW + Batty in the New 52 = Ricky Ships It. <3
Batty + Sweetness = Happy Shippers Like Ricky.
Batty + Fighting = See Meme Below.
So, when The Flash ended last night with the supremely adorkable Patty Spivot choosing to leave Central City, my immediate reaction was a shocked "NOOOOO..." And then, when the scene played out completely and I was able to process it, I was still in two minds. On the one hand, it's cool that Patty gets to follow a dream she put aside years ago, and if Barry says that her choice of school's a good one, well...
Amy's right. Patty's tougher than that, and we all know it. And this is The Flash we're talking about - a show that runs on characters for whom we feel so strongly. We want to see nothing but the best for our heroes. We want them to win, not only when taking on deadly meta-humans and other assorted bad guys, but also when they're connecting with others and forming relationships. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees a lot of myself in Barry. One thing I don't want us to have in common, however, is a terminal inability to maintain a loving, long-term relationship. (Of course, Barry's lucky in that he's had girlfriends, whereas I haven't had one, ever, for so many reasons not germane to this discussion.)
Mark my words, Pinecones, this is not the last we'll be seeing of Patty Spivot.
Till next time...
I'm not too big on math. We haven't been on good terms in years. But today, I'll persuade her to help me demonstrate a few things re: last night's episode of The Flash in simple terms.
Barry Allen + Patty Spivot = Batty.
Batty on the CW + Batty in the New 52 = Ricky Ships It. <3
Batty + Sweetness = Happy Shippers Like Ricky.
Batty + Fighting = See Meme Below.
 |
| I still don't trust Harry, in any incarnation, because of this, BTW. |
So, when The Flash ended last night with the supremely adorkable Patty Spivot choosing to leave Central City, my immediate reaction was a shocked "NOOOOO..." And then, when the scene played out completely and I was able to process it, I was still in two minds. On the one hand, it's cool that Patty gets to follow a dream she put aside years ago, and if Barry says that her choice of school's a good one, well...
But on the other hand, I'm directing this particular message to the men and women of the Flash writers' room.
 |
| Seriously, Berlanti et al. |
And that's just the superficial, primordial reaction. Another, more enlightened mind clued me in last night to an even better reason why Patty's decision was a mistake. I hereby bring in the tweet that started a long convo that kept me up past midnight:
LOVE #TheFlash but it'd be refreshing if Patty wasn't like every other love interest & bolt when things are shaky. She's tougher than that.
— Amanda Whittaker (@AmySedgemore) January 20, 2016
Amy's right. Patty's tougher than that, and we all know it. And this is The Flash we're talking about - a show that runs on characters for whom we feel so strongly. We want to see nothing but the best for our heroes. We want them to win, not only when taking on deadly meta-humans and other assorted bad guys, but also when they're connecting with others and forming relationships. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees a lot of myself in Barry. One thing I don't want us to have in common, however, is a terminal inability to maintain a loving, long-term relationship. (Of course, Barry's lucky in that he's had girlfriends, whereas I haven't had one, ever, for so many reasons not germane to this discussion.)
 |
| This GIF was begging me to find a time and place for it. :) |
Amy also brought up another great talking point in our chat last night - the possibility that Patty will return and help investigate the case of The Flash, as many of us have expected she'll eventually do with her (not without reason) anti-meta position. In my words, "Hello major plot twist!" The tension alone would be enough to drive us poor viewers Batty (pun intended), but at least Patty will get to stay on the show that way. Because, in another reply of mine going back to Amy's original tweet:
@AmySedgemore Exactly. :D Patty's more than just a love interest; she shouldn't go out with a whimper like this! #TheFlash
— Ricky Pine (@WriterRickyPine) January 20, 2016
Mark my words, Pinecones, this is not the last we'll be seeing of Patty Spivot.
Till next time...
|
| #FeedTheRightWolf |
|
| Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
Sunday, September 27, 2015
The Scorch Trials Movie: Or, Mad Thomas And His Army Of BAMFs
Before you read this post, I have a bit of mood music for you to enjoy. It's a sample from the soundtrack for the movie I just saw in theaters today, and it's one of the best pieces of movie music I've heard since the theme from Pacific Rim. It's fast-paced, intense, and perfectly exemplifies the panic-inducing Holy Shit Quotient of its movie, especially around the two-minute mark with a sound effect that's best described thusly: "It's quiet. Too quiet...wait, that's a goddamn countdown clock! EVERYBODY RUN!"
Say the title in your best Aidan Gillen impression: "You're Not Getting Out Of Here." And enjoy John Paesano's finest:
Now...my review. (WARNING: SPOILERS!)
At long last, I've gone and seen the second Maze Runner movie, The Scorch Trials. I went into it knowing that it would be quite different from the book, even more so than its predecessor. Remembering how the differences between book and movie made the latter that much better, I had high hopes for this second installment.
My hopes were met and then some.
Talking with my friend after seeing the movie, I've realized something. God love James Dashner and his #DashnerArmy, but The Maze Runner is a rare example of a book (or, in this case, series) that works so much better as a movie that the book actually suffers for it, paling in comparison. It's especially noticeable with this second movie, because I found the original Scorch Trials to be the weakest novel in the trilogy, but I'm thinking that for the movies, it'll be the opposite for me. For me, The Scorch Trials movie could be this franchise's Catching Fire, the middle installment that wipes the floor with its predecessor and sequel on so many levels.
The first major difference between the book and the movie here is that, instead of having two Mazes (one mostly boys, one mostly girls) competing to run across the Scorch to safety (except it's really not), the plot is instead kicked off by the Group A survivors (Thomas, Newt, Teresa, Minho, etc.) and newbie Aris (from Group B) discovering the deadly, Island-esque secret of WCKD. Instead of sending the survivors of the many Mazes to a safe place, they're harvesting them for the cure to the Flare. That's when Tommy Boy and company realize they gotta vacate the premises yesterday, and maybe even take down a few hapless security guards in the process.
The outcome of the plot is largely the same as in the book, though, with Teresa still being a traitor and bringing WCKD to the safe place, exactly where they're least wanted. It would've helped if Thomas could have discovered it sooner with the telepathic powers he had in the book, but the movies wisely discarded that element, because I think the writers knew it would make it harder to believe that Teresa could be so good at hiding her betrayal for so long. (Also, on the subject of Teresa, Kaya Scodelario's American accent has improved considerably since her appearance in the first movie. There, my cousin and I both agreed that it sucked, although she definitely made up for it with the throwing-of-fruit scene.)
Along the way, it's a pretty bloody wild ride, as Newt might say. (Or as I would say - my most attentive Pinecones would've noticed why by now, I bet.) The desert landscape of the titular Scorch looks like Mad Max by way of I Am Legend - postapocalyptic, more broken than the outskirts of that Limbo city from Inception, and eye-catching in every way. It helped that I saw it in the new Barco Escape 270-degree format, with two additional screens positioned to the side of the main one. I hear this technology was first showcased last year on the original Maze Runner movie, which I was not able to catch in theaters, sadly. This year, however, my local theater was one of the lucky few selected to feature the Escape screens. While the display needed a bit of work - anytime the extra screens kicked in for close-up footage, the three images didn't join together as seamlessly as they should have - it was perfect for the inevitable sweeping, panoramic first shot of the ruined city in which our protagonists found themselves.
That's just one of many serious visual treats this movie has in store. And boy howdy, does this movie deliver on the effects. Both Maze Runner movies are shockingly less expensive than the appear. The first movie was budgeted around $35 million, and this one at $61 million. You probably wouldn't know that, though, from the lifelike CGI ruins, insanely pyrotechnic climax, the collapsing factory (which is itself prefaced by an explosion with a highly original ignition source - an electrically-tipped device attached to the needle of a record player, playing a hilariously dissonant-for-the-scene Hawaiian-type ditty which I will refer to only as "Jorge's song"), and of course the Cranks. While Dashner doesn't do their description much justice in the book, as far as my best friend and I can remember, in the movie, they're the stuff of Greg Nicotero's nightmares. They're the most gnarly zombies ever put to film, if I do say so myself. I'd like to see the walkers of The Walking Dead run up stacks of escalators, or pop out of underground undergrowth, or take terrifying plunges through broken windows in half-collapsed skyscrapers.
Thanks to this movie, I think it's safe to say that Wes Ball has landed squarely in my list of top five directors whom I would love to see helm a film version of Red Rain. Other top contenders include Len Wiseman (from whom I have only one degree of separation, because we graduated from the same high school about twenty years apart), Marc Webb (director of my favorite movies, The Amazing Spider-Man series), James Gunn ('cause Guardians, you know), and Joss Whedon (who could do with a slight change of pace following his two-in-a-row Avengers kick.)
There are also a number of actors here whom I would love to see in a potential Red Rain movie. There's a whole buttload of professional Hey, It's That Guy! stars - here we have such examples as Lili Taylor (Da Chief from Almost Human), Aidan Gillen (you'll never see Littlefinger the same way again, and certainly not without wanting to punch his lights out for being such an assbutt prick to our poor Glader friends), Alan Tudyk (whoever decided on his character's wardrobe needs a medal for extreme tackiness), and Giancarlo Esposito (Jorge. 'Nuff said.)
And as for the young up-and-comers, there are plenty of great ones to go around, and they need our eyes on them, 'cause the vast majority of them are going places, methinks. Chief among them are my three most fancastable. Katherine McNamara (my pick for Rachel from Red Rain), the new Clary Fray, appears here as Sonya, a survivor of Group B, and it was awesome to finally get a glimpse of her at work before the premiere of Shadowhunters. Not to mention I was not-so-secretly fanboying, 'cause she's my new celebrity crush. And why not? Between her great looks, her big brain (IMDb informs me she graduated high school and college early), and her being a fellow Spider-Fan (unless I remember her recent Twitter Q&A wrongly), what's not to love about her?
Newt deserves mention as well. I've noticed that everyone and their mother wants Thomas Sangster to play a part in their books-turned movies. My friend would like to see him as the lead role in her rabies-themed survival horror story. Taran Matharu would love him to be Tarquin in a Summoner movie. I've chosen him as the face of Gabe (and before I forget, does anyone know of any proof that Sangster's got a good fake American accent? I'd love at least one character in Red Rain to have one, the better to fool my dad like Andrew Lincoln did on The Walking Dead.) Sangster is a talented dude, because these three characters I've mentioned are a pretty diverse lot, and he could prove more than a match for their roles. Also, these are all barely-post-adolescent roles at most, but that's okay, because Sangster doesn't seem to have aged much beyond seventeen. Therefore, any extreme Andrew Garfield-level Dawson Casting is excusable for him.
Let us not, dear friends, forget Dylan O'Brien. But what could I say about him that hasn't been said before? I believe he's our generation's next great action hero.
And, like the rest of us, he's an incurable goofball. Just see this next GIF or any Teen Wolf blooper reel for proof ('cause most of the highlights of the latter are his fault).
Between the movie-magic eye candy and the serious star power, I have no choice but to award The Scorch Trials an A+ grade. It's my favorite movie of 2015 so far, and while there are some serious future contenders for that same title (Crimson Peak, Mockingjay: Part II, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), this one's guaranteed to remain in fourth place at worst. The next movie's less than 18 months away now, but the wait for Feb. 2017's probably gonna feel a little bit like this:
And now, I have to stop writing - I really need to sleep, but I might dream about the Scorch instead. Till next time, Pinecones!
Say the title in your best Aidan Gillen impression: "You're Not Getting Out Of Here." And enjoy John Paesano's finest:
At long last, I've gone and seen the second Maze Runner movie, The Scorch Trials. I went into it knowing that it would be quite different from the book, even more so than its predecessor. Remembering how the differences between book and movie made the latter that much better, I had high hopes for this second installment.
My hopes were met and then some.
Talking with my friend after seeing the movie, I've realized something. God love James Dashner and his #DashnerArmy, but The Maze Runner is a rare example of a book (or, in this case, series) that works so much better as a movie that the book actually suffers for it, paling in comparison. It's especially noticeable with this second movie, because I found the original Scorch Trials to be the weakest novel in the trilogy, but I'm thinking that for the movies, it'll be the opposite for me. For me, The Scorch Trials movie could be this franchise's Catching Fire, the middle installment that wipes the floor with its predecessor and sequel on so many levels.
 |
| When mentioning Catching Fire, never fail to invoke Johanna Mason. |
The first major difference between the book and the movie here is that, instead of having two Mazes (one mostly boys, one mostly girls) competing to run across the Scorch to safety (except it's really not), the plot is instead kicked off by the Group A survivors (Thomas, Newt, Teresa, Minho, etc.) and newbie Aris (from Group B) discovering the deadly, Island-esque secret of WCKD. Instead of sending the survivors of the many Mazes to a safe place, they're harvesting them for the cure to the Flare. That's when Tommy Boy and company realize they gotta vacate the premises yesterday, and maybe even take down a few hapless security guards in the process.
 |
| Can I haz electric tazer rifle too? Please? Pretty please? |
The outcome of the plot is largely the same as in the book, though, with Teresa still being a traitor and bringing WCKD to the safe place, exactly where they're least wanted. It would've helped if Thomas could have discovered it sooner with the telepathic powers he had in the book, but the movies wisely discarded that element, because I think the writers knew it would make it harder to believe that Teresa could be so good at hiding her betrayal for so long. (Also, on the subject of Teresa, Kaya Scodelario's American accent has improved considerably since her appearance in the first movie. There, my cousin and I both agreed that it sucked, although she definitely made up for it with the throwing-of-fruit scene.)
Along the way, it's a pretty bloody wild ride, as Newt might say. (Or as I would say - my most attentive Pinecones would've noticed why by now, I bet.) The desert landscape of the titular Scorch looks like Mad Max by way of I Am Legend - postapocalyptic, more broken than the outskirts of that Limbo city from Inception, and eye-catching in every way. It helped that I saw it in the new Barco Escape 270-degree format, with two additional screens positioned to the side of the main one. I hear this technology was first showcased last year on the original Maze Runner movie, which I was not able to catch in theaters, sadly. This year, however, my local theater was one of the lucky few selected to feature the Escape screens. While the display needed a bit of work - anytime the extra screens kicked in for close-up footage, the three images didn't join together as seamlessly as they should have - it was perfect for the inevitable sweeping, panoramic first shot of the ruined city in which our protagonists found themselves.
 |
| Despite not really being in the movie, this shot is actually pretty representative of the Scorch. |
That's just one of many serious visual treats this movie has in store. And boy howdy, does this movie deliver on the effects. Both Maze Runner movies are shockingly less expensive than the appear. The first movie was budgeted around $35 million, and this one at $61 million. You probably wouldn't know that, though, from the lifelike CGI ruins, insanely pyrotechnic climax, the collapsing factory (which is itself prefaced by an explosion with a highly original ignition source - an electrically-tipped device attached to the needle of a record player, playing a hilariously dissonant-for-the-scene Hawaiian-type ditty which I will refer to only as "Jorge's song"), and of course the Cranks. While Dashner doesn't do their description much justice in the book, as far as my best friend and I can remember, in the movie, they're the stuff of Greg Nicotero's nightmares. They're the most gnarly zombies ever put to film, if I do say so myself. I'd like to see the walkers of The Walking Dead run up stacks of escalators, or pop out of underground undergrowth, or take terrifying plunges through broken windows in half-collapsed skyscrapers.
 |
| Not a lot of detail in this shot. But that's okay. I don't wanna scare the kiddies. |
Thanks to this movie, I think it's safe to say that Wes Ball has landed squarely in my list of top five directors whom I would love to see helm a film version of Red Rain. Other top contenders include Len Wiseman (from whom I have only one degree of separation, because we graduated from the same high school about twenty years apart), Marc Webb (director of my favorite movies, The Amazing Spider-Man series), James Gunn ('cause Guardians, you know), and Joss Whedon (who could do with a slight change of pace following his two-in-a-row Avengers kick.)
 |
| Fame, fortune, and glory, I hope. |
There are also a number of actors here whom I would love to see in a potential Red Rain movie. There's a whole buttload of professional Hey, It's That Guy! stars - here we have such examples as Lili Taylor (Da Chief from Almost Human), Aidan Gillen (you'll never see Littlefinger the same way again, and certainly not without wanting to punch his lights out for being such an assbutt prick to our poor Glader friends), Alan Tudyk (whoever decided on his character's wardrobe needs a medal for extreme tackiness), and Giancarlo Esposito (Jorge. 'Nuff said.)
And as for the young up-and-comers, there are plenty of great ones to go around, and they need our eyes on them, 'cause the vast majority of them are going places, methinks. Chief among them are my three most fancastable. Katherine McNamara (my pick for Rachel from Red Rain), the new Clary Fray, appears here as Sonya, a survivor of Group B, and it was awesome to finally get a glimpse of her at work before the premiere of Shadowhunters. Not to mention I was not-so-secretly fanboying, 'cause she's my new celebrity crush. And why not? Between her great looks, her big brain (IMDb informs me she graduated high school and college early), and her being a fellow Spider-Fan (unless I remember her recent Twitter Q&A wrongly), what's not to love about her?
 |
| Blondes don't have to be dumb, but they still get to have fun. |
 |
| New Avenger's Gwen Stacy, or MJ? Either way, she'd rock the house. |
Newt deserves mention as well. I've noticed that everyone and their mother wants Thomas Sangster to play a part in their books-turned movies. My friend would like to see him as the lead role in her rabies-themed survival horror story. Taran Matharu would love him to be Tarquin in a Summoner movie. I've chosen him as the face of Gabe (and before I forget, does anyone know of any proof that Sangster's got a good fake American accent? I'd love at least one character in Red Rain to have one, the better to fool my dad like Andrew Lincoln did on The Walking Dead.) Sangster is a talented dude, because these three characters I've mentioned are a pretty diverse lot, and he could prove more than a match for their roles. Also, these are all barely-post-adolescent roles at most, but that's okay, because Sangster doesn't seem to have aged much beyond seventeen. Therefore, any extreme Andrew Garfield-level Dawson Casting is excusable for him.
 |
| If Newt dies, we riot. You with me, you cheeky bastards? |
Let us not, dear friends, forget Dylan O'Brien. But what could I say about him that hasn't been said before? I believe he's our generation's next great action hero.
 |
| Preach, dude. |
And, like the rest of us, he's an incurable goofball. Just see this next GIF or any Teen Wolf blooper reel for proof ('cause most of the highlights of the latter are his fault).
 |
| Better not dance like that in the Maze for real. The Grievers can be really harsh critics. |
Between the movie-magic eye candy and the serious star power, I have no choice but to award The Scorch Trials an A+ grade. It's my favorite movie of 2015 so far, and while there are some serious future contenders for that same title (Crimson Peak, Mockingjay: Part II, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), this one's guaranteed to remain in fourth place at worst. The next movie's less than 18 months away now, but the wait for Feb. 2017's probably gonna feel a little bit like this:
 |
| But it's less torturous than waiting for Sherlock. |
And now, I have to stop writing - I really need to sleep, but I might dream about the Scorch instead. Till next time, Pinecones!
|
| #FeedTheRightWolf |
|
| Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
Sunday, May 31, 2015
My Thoughts On Tomorrowland
Today, I've seen a movie that absolutely necessitated me to do one thing that I've not done before on this little blog - write a movie review. That movie is none other than Disney's latest wonderfully extravagant salute to the power of human imagination and ingenuity - Tomorrowland.
But because I'm a far from conventional dude, this is going to be a far from conventional review. It'll focus less on the movie itself and more on its connections to other movies, not to mention this here real, ever-changing world in which we live in.
Let's start by examining some of the most recent movies Disney did before this one. Two and a half years ago, Disney put out the movie that fully restored my lost faith in animation that they hadn't served up. Having been disappointed in Up, Tangled, and even Toy Story 3, all of which I'd found ridiculously overhyped and overrated (although I've come to like TS3 since then), Pixar bounced back with the visual beauty and fascinating story of Brave. But I didn't see that one before seeing one of the film world's most epic mashups of some seriously disparate genres. Not film genres, though - video game genres.
Eventually, after a fictional classic arcade game meshed unbelievably well with sugary-sweet racers and a wildly obsessed hunter-killer of Cy-Bugs, I did finally catch the party on Pixar's best leading lady ever.
Let's get back in order here, though...so now we're gonna jump ahead to only eighteen months ago, to November 2013. You all remember the instant smash hit latest addition to Disney's animated canon, featuring two new princesses, hella ear-worm-y new songs, and so much beautiful ice and snow to distract from any story weaknesses the movie has.
Don't get me wrong - I actually liked the movie when I first saw it. But does it really deserve all the hype it gets? No. It's good for kids, and easily analyzable by adults, but unlike the songs, the story has a harder time sticking in my brain. It's harder for me to connect to other stories thematically, which, I think, is the hallmark of the best stories told in film and literature. I am aware that my opinion may not be very popular, but it is my opinion, and as Roger Ebert says, "All criticism is subjective." So, if you feel the need to sharpen the pitchforks and light the torches on my account, you may do so. But it won't change my thoughts.
But the best thing about Frozen is how it sets itself apart from other Disney movies by playing around with the traditional Disney tropes, particularly those of the Princess movies. It sets up the obvious Big Bad, and obvious love interest for our latest Princess - and then turns those on its head by making neither obvious candidate for either position the correct one.
The Disney Deconstruction continued a year ago with the release of a live-action adaptation of one of the classic Disney Princess movies. I've not seen Sleeping Beauty before, but I do know of that movie's iconic villain. She got her own movie, with the writer of Alice in Wonderland on board, and as a Villain Protagonist, she helped make one of the most unique Disney movies in memory.
Helping push this movie on Disney's path of making increasingly different, un-Disney-like movies was the one moment that turned Maleficent into a villain. Even before I knew what the scene was meant to represent (you never expected Disney to green-light a movie with a rape metaphor, did you?) I instinctively teared up for Maleficent when her wings were taken from her. As a longtime fan of Maximum Ride (and, later, Angelfall and Generation Icarus), I know that there is a special hell reserved for those who would dare to prevent those capable of exploring the air from doing so. It's just...you can't do that. It's a huge, huge taboo as far as I'm concerned.
And then along came, six months ago, my new favorite animated movie of all time. Between the beautiful setting (a mashup of the city my parents called home, and another massive metropolis just an ocean away), the intense emotional gamut-running, and the wildest comic-book action not portrayed on-screen by flesh-and-blood humans, it's no wonder, too.
At its core, Big Hero 6 is, like Wreck-It Ralph, an epic little mashup. In this case, the mashing-up lies not only in its setting, but also in its protagonist, Hiro Hamada, who blends the engineering talents of this guy...
...and the tragic, death-in-the-family backstory of this guy...
...while keeping both their snarkastic senses of humor intact.
Oh, and while we're at it...Baymax. The most adorable thing EVAH. The best fictional robot, best health-care provider (despite his painful slowness), best fist-bumper, and sometimes he can be cuter than your average miniature schnauzer begging for playtime.
Now, there are three trends that the last three movies I've mentioned have all followed. First, they alternate between animation and live action. Second, they get increasingly dark and emotional. And third, they get less money at the box office with each successive entry. Frozen got over a billion dollars, Maleficent got about 750 mill, and Big Hero 6 got a little over 500 million.
Following these same trends is Disney's latest release.
Looking at the trailers, they were trailers done right. Each one focused on one specific scene from the movie - for example, the scene in which Casey (Britt Roberston, best known as Angie from Under The Dome) picks up a pin that allows her to see into Tomorrowland, or the scene where she goes to see Frank (George Clooney, but you already knew that) and ends up dragged along for the ride as he weaponizes his house against robotic invaders before they make themselves a daring escape. That first showcased the movie's promise, and that second showcased its high action (with director Brad Bird at the helm, what else would you expect?) But neither of them really gave away the point of the movie, for which my viewing experience was all the better. This is one of those movies that utterly depends on not being spoiled, especially not in the trailers.
So, for that reason, all I will say about the main plot of this dark, emotionally-wrenching, and sadly-underperforming-at-the-box-office movie is this: George Clooney and Stiles Stilinski's real-life girlfriend must save the world from Dr. House.
I will also not spoil too much about the movie's message, which is, quite simply, that we humans must all stay positive and believe in our ability to change the world. As a writer who's not been officially published, such thinking is often the only thing that keeps me going as I pursue my dreams. Having still not been able to attract a single literary agent after sending so many query letters (over fifty at last count), I need to remember that in some universe known either to man or tachyons, I will be published, and I will become the next big bestselling YA author. Whether or not it's the one I'm currently inhabiting...well, lemme get back to you on that, buddy. But while I do write to show the world the warped sense of reality in my own head, I have a bigger, more noble purpose as well. Just as the YA greats before me - chief among them, of course, J.K. Rowling, Rick Riordan, Suzanne Collins, James Patterson, Cassandra Clare, Heather Brewer, Ransom Riggs, Veronica Roth, Marissa Meyer, and more other amazingly talented individuals than I can shake a stick at or count on all my fingers and toes - have influenced this generation of young readers and writers, so I must one day influence the next generation.
The movie does a great job putting that message out, even with its reliance on hard science. But it puts it best with something only a gifted writer (like Bird and Lindelof) could have come up with: a metaphor given to Casey by her dad: (paraphrased): "You are met by two wolves. One represents darkness and despair...
"...and the other, brightness and hope...
"So which one wins? The one you feed." And with that, I now have something else to add to my usual blogging signature.
But because I'm a far from conventional dude, this is going to be a far from conventional review. It'll focus less on the movie itself and more on its connections to other movies, not to mention this here real, ever-changing world in which we live in.
 |
| First shout-out of the day: a hat-tip to Sir Paul. |
Let's start by examining some of the most recent movies Disney did before this one. Two and a half years ago, Disney put out the movie that fully restored my lost faith in animation that they hadn't served up. Having been disappointed in Up, Tangled, and even Toy Story 3, all of which I'd found ridiculously overhyped and overrated (although I've come to like TS3 since then), Pixar bounced back with the visual beauty and fascinating story of Brave. But I didn't see that one before seeing one of the film world's most epic mashups of some seriously disparate genres. Not film genres, though - video game genres.
 |
| "Wreck-It Ralph is a giant of a man Nine feet tall with really big hands Livin' on a stump on his very own land Until his world went crazy..." |
Eventually, after a fictional classic arcade game meshed unbelievably well with sugary-sweet racers and a wildly obsessed hunter-killer of Cy-Bugs, I did finally catch the party on Pixar's best leading lady ever.
 |
| Now and forever shooting for her own hand! |
Let's get back in order here, though...so now we're gonna jump ahead to only eighteen months ago, to November 2013. You all remember the instant smash hit latest addition to Disney's animated canon, featuring two new princesses, hella ear-worm-y new songs, and so much beautiful ice and snow to distract from any story weaknesses the movie has.
 |
| Also the catalyst for OUAT's best storyline yet. |
Don't get me wrong - I actually liked the movie when I first saw it. But does it really deserve all the hype it gets? No. It's good for kids, and easily analyzable by adults, but unlike the songs, the story has a harder time sticking in my brain. It's harder for me to connect to other stories thematically, which, I think, is the hallmark of the best stories told in film and literature. I am aware that my opinion may not be very popular, but it is my opinion, and as Roger Ebert says, "All criticism is subjective." So, if you feel the need to sharpen the pitchforks and light the torches on my account, you may do so. But it won't change my thoughts.
 |
| Such as the fact that this moment, right here, is my favorite part of the movie. |
But the best thing about Frozen is how it sets itself apart from other Disney movies by playing around with the traditional Disney tropes, particularly those of the Princess movies. It sets up the obvious Big Bad, and obvious love interest for our latest Princess - and then turns those on its head by making neither obvious candidate for either position the correct one.
The Disney Deconstruction continued a year ago with the release of a live-action adaptation of one of the classic Disney Princess movies. I've not seen Sleeping Beauty before, but I do know of that movie's iconic villain. She got her own movie, with the writer of Alice in Wonderland on board, and as a Villain Protagonist, she helped make one of the most unique Disney movies in memory.
 |
| Behold her horned, cheekboned glory! |
Helping push this movie on Disney's path of making increasingly different, un-Disney-like movies was the one moment that turned Maleficent into a villain. Even before I knew what the scene was meant to represent (you never expected Disney to green-light a movie with a rape metaphor, did you?) I instinctively teared up for Maleficent when her wings were taken from her. As a longtime fan of Maximum Ride (and, later, Angelfall and Generation Icarus), I know that there is a special hell reserved for those who would dare to prevent those capable of exploring the air from doing so. It's just...you can't do that. It's a huge, huge taboo as far as I'm concerned.
 |
| Amen, Shepherd Book. A-friggin'-men. |
And then along came, six months ago, my new favorite animated movie of all time. Between the beautiful setting (a mashup of the city my parents called home, and another massive metropolis just an ocean away), the intense emotional gamut-running, and the wildest comic-book action not portrayed on-screen by flesh-and-blood humans, it's no wonder, too.
 |
| Yeah, yeah, you haven't seen the first five yet. But who cares? THIS is the one everyone in the world needs to see. |
At its core, Big Hero 6 is, like Wreck-It Ralph, an epic little mashup. In this case, the mashing-up lies not only in its setting, but also in its protagonist, Hiro Hamada, who blends the engineering talents of this guy...
 |
| Mmm...donuts. :) |
...and the tragic, death-in-the-family backstory of this guy...
 |
| It's hard to say whose heart the universe enjoys breaking more. |
...while keeping both their snarkastic senses of humor intact.
 |
| Not actual lines from the movie, but you gotta admit - these are TOTALLY in character. |
Oh, and while we're at it...Baymax. The most adorable thing EVAH. The best fictional robot, best health-care provider (despite his painful slowness), best fist-bumper, and sometimes he can be cuter than your average miniature schnauzer begging for playtime.
 |
| Baymax, fetch! Good boy! *pats his head* |
Now, there are three trends that the last three movies I've mentioned have all followed. First, they alternate between animation and live action. Second, they get increasingly dark and emotional. And third, they get less money at the box office with each successive entry. Frozen got over a billion dollars, Maleficent got about 750 mill, and Big Hero 6 got a little over 500 million.
Following these same trends is Disney's latest release.
 |
| "You ain't seen nothing yet." |
Looking at the trailers, they were trailers done right. Each one focused on one specific scene from the movie - for example, the scene in which Casey (Britt Roberston, best known as Angie from Under The Dome) picks up a pin that allows her to see into Tomorrowland, or the scene where she goes to see Frank (George Clooney, but you already knew that) and ends up dragged along for the ride as he weaponizes his house against robotic invaders before they make themselves a daring escape. That first showcased the movie's promise, and that second showcased its high action (with director Brad Bird at the helm, what else would you expect?) But neither of them really gave away the point of the movie, for which my viewing experience was all the better. This is one of those movies that utterly depends on not being spoiled, especially not in the trailers.
 |
| Also proof of this movie's quality - it's co-written by Damon Lindelof of Lost. |
So, for that reason, all I will say about the main plot of this dark, emotionally-wrenching, and sadly-underperforming-at-the-box-office movie is this: George Clooney and Stiles Stilinski's real-life girlfriend must save the world from Dr. House.
 |
| The sad thing is, in the movie, he's completely right. So expect Cracked to use him for their next article. |
I will also not spoil too much about the movie's message, which is, quite simply, that we humans must all stay positive and believe in our ability to change the world. As a writer who's not been officially published, such thinking is often the only thing that keeps me going as I pursue my dreams. Having still not been able to attract a single literary agent after sending so many query letters (over fifty at last count), I need to remember that in some universe known either to man or tachyons, I will be published, and I will become the next big bestselling YA author. Whether or not it's the one I'm currently inhabiting...well, lemme get back to you on that, buddy. But while I do write to show the world the warped sense of reality in my own head, I have a bigger, more noble purpose as well. Just as the YA greats before me - chief among them, of course, J.K. Rowling, Rick Riordan, Suzanne Collins, James Patterson, Cassandra Clare, Heather Brewer, Ransom Riggs, Veronica Roth, Marissa Meyer, and more other amazingly talented individuals than I can shake a stick at or count on all my fingers and toes - have influenced this generation of young readers and writers, so I must one day influence the next generation.
The movie does a great job putting that message out, even with its reliance on hard science. But it puts it best with something only a gifted writer (like Bird and Lindelof) could have come up with: a metaphor given to Casey by her dad: (paraphrased): "You are met by two wolves. One represents darkness and despair...
 |
| With apologies to Derek's fans, but I needed a blue-eyed werewolf to make my point. |
"...and the other, brightness and hope...
 |
| For those who aren't into Teen Wolf - the werewolves' eyes are normally this color. Unless they've killed an innocent soul. |
"So which one wins? The one you feed." And with that, I now have something else to add to my usual blogging signature.
|
| Feed the right wolf. |
|
| Remember - Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
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